To find a youth equestrian program, search on the websites of the Certified Horsemanship Association and the American Quarter Horses Association, both of which have a list of certified instructors across the country. Visit and interview horsemanship program facilities with helpful information from a horse ranch program director in this video on horseback riding.
Hi, my name is Maryjo Turnbull and I'm a Program, the Program Manager at Silver Buckle Ranch in Brush Prairie, Washington and I like to take some time today and help you realize some resources that are out there to help you and your family to locate a riding program that's perfect for you. When considering a riding program, you definitely want to think about what your personal goals are and when you call different riding schools in your area, you want to ask them specifically what it is that they teach and how they teach it and if they're able to meet your goals and sometimes your goals may just be social, sometimes they're physical. Sometimes you really are getting in looking for a program to teach you as much as possible about horses. So when you call a horsemanship program you really want to have a bunch of questions written down and interview them and find out if they're a good fit for you. After you talked to them on the phone or if you've looked them up on the Internet, you might want to go out and take a tour. I highly encourage that you go out and look at the facility. It needs to be a safe facility; the horses need to be in excellent health. You need to feel like you're welcome there and it's a comfortable environment to learning. There's several places on the Internet where it could help you look for different riding schools. One is the Certified Horsemanship Association. Having a certified instructor is certainly the way to go and if you look up on their website, they're going to have a listing of all their instructors in different areas all over the country. You can also go to the American Quarter Horses Association which is a partner with the Certified Horsemanship Association and they also are going to list all the Certified Horsemanship Association trainers and instructor in the country; so that might be a good way to find an instructor as well.
